Pascal's Wager

[Izumi Koushirou]

Recently, I was talking to some friends at school at Atheism, Christianity,God and the Universe, and somebody told me this:

"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

My opinion on this belief, which is called Pascal's Wager, is this: (Please note, everything said in the following statement I agree with, however, it was not written by me. I am not that eloquent.)

"Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion's version of hell.

Even if we assume that there's a God, that doesn't imply that there's one unique God. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?

Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in the wrong God -- the true God might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.

Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely -- or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.

Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.

Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:

One does not know whether God exists.
Not believing in God is bad for one's eternal soul if God does exist.
Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in God.
There are two approaches to the argument. The first is to view Statement 1 as an assumption, and Statement 2 as a consequence of it. The problem is that there's really no way to arrive at Statement 2 from Statement 1 via simple logical inference. The statements just don't follow on from each other.

The alternative approach is to claim that Statements 1 and 2 are both assumptions. The problem with this is that Statement 2 is then basically an assumption which states the Christian position, and only a Christian will agree with that assumption. The argument thus collapses to "If you are a Christian, it is in your interests to believe in God" -- a rather vacuous tautology, and not the way Pascal intended the argument to be viewed.

Also, if we don't even know that God exists, why should we take Statement 2 over some similar assumption? Isn't it just as likely that God would be angry at people who chose to believe for personal gain? If God is omniscient, he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as a wager. He will spurn the latter... assuming he actually cares at all whether people truly believe in him.

Some have suggested that the person who chooses to believe based on Pascal's Wager, can then somehow make the transition to truly believing. Unfortunately, most atheists don't find it possible to make that leap.

In addition, this hypothetical God may require more than simple belief; almost all Christians believe that the Christian God requires an element of trust and obedience from his followers. That destroys the assertion that if you believe but are wrong, you lose nothing.

Finally, if this God is a fair and just God, surely he will judge people on their actions in life, not on whether they happen to believe in him. A God who sends good and kind people to hell is not one most atheists would be prepared to consider worshipping.

So now, what do you think of Pascal's Wager? I will make a poll about this in addition to this post.

[RavEMasteR]

I say it shows cowardice, and uncertainty. I believe it's better to be sure of something, like me believing that God is an ass and a mass murderer, than to be unsure whether God exists or not by following Christianity.

If I die, and God exists, well, too bad. I'll see you all in Hell. But I can die knowing that I've made the best of my life and have contributed to humanity in one form or another. It's better than going around preaching about Christ and getting people braiwashed, and at the same time, wasting everybody's time.

We can all commit good without God, so why the hell bother with joining Christ for the sake of doing Good? Isn't it a waste of time, especially when you become unsure, or when your faith becomes shaken; and then you waste time trying to decide between God or a normal happy life?

My stand: Christ is wasting everybody's time. It's irrelevant, and only serves a purpose which most other people can already do without Christ.

[Corvus]

People tend to put too much into Pascal's wager, and I doubt this is why the French mathmetician believed in the Christian god. If you want a real argument, read Pascal's Pensees (thoughts), which is the notes of the uncompleted thesis he was preparing to defend the Christian religion. The thing is upstairs in my bookshelf, but I have yet to read it. Such things usually only convince those who need no convincing.

[otseng]

Here's Pascal's Pensees if anybody wants to read them online...

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/ ... tents.html

[DeoxyriboNucleicAcid]

Pascall's Wager is a silly bit of work, really. I can't choose to believe something that I consider arrant nonsense.

[otseng]

Pascall's Wager is a silly bit of work, really. I can't choose to believe something that I consider arrant nonsense.

Nonsense? I would hardly classify Pascal's thinking nonsense. The statement makes sense, though I just doubt that it can convince people to believe in a god.

What about it does not make sense?

[CanadianBuddhist]

I believe in absolutly nothing of the christian ideas of god, satan, heaven, and hell. If you are moral and kind to all beings but don't believe in God, would you go to hell? If you believe in god but you are mean to others and commit numerous "sins" as many religious people do, would you still go to heaven? As far as I can tell, and correct me if I'm wrong because I am no expert on Christianity, but it seems to me that the Christian idea of God and creation is that God put us here for no other reason than to worship him and if we don't we will be punished. Sounds like a childish game to me. How could a supreme being be so vain?

[otseng]

I believe in absolutly nothing of the christian ideas of god, satan, heaven, and hell. If you are moral and kind to all beings but don't believe in God, would you go to hell? If you believe in god but you are mean to others and commit numerous "sins" as many religious people do, would you still go to heaven? As far as I can tell, and correct me if I'm wrong because I am no expert on Christianity, but it seems to me that the Christian idea of God and creation is that God put us here for no other reason than to worship him and if we don't we will be punished. Sounds like a childish game to me. How could a supreme being be so vain?

All of these are excellent questions. Please select one of these questions and start a new topic on it. It's much easier to discuss and to follow if topics can be in their own thread.

[DeoxyriboNucleicAcid]

Pascall's Wager is a silly bit of work, really. I can't choose to believe something that I consider arrant nonsense.

Nonsense? I would hardly classify Pascal's thinking nonsense. The statement makes sense, though I just doubt that it can convince people to believe in a god.

What about it does not make sense?

Well Pascal's argument is foolish. His idea that it's safer to believe something because if you don't you'll be punished is no argument to believe. But my comment 'arrant nonsense' referred not to Pascal's Wager but to the astonishing christian belief system. Cheers.

[otseng]

Well Pascal's argument is foolish. His idea that it's safer to believe something because if you don't you'll be punished is no argument to believe.

I agree that it's not really going to convince people to believe.

But my comment 'arrant nonsense' referred not to Pascal's Wager but to the astonishing christian belief system. Cheers.

OK. Feel free to start a thread on any particular aspect that you consider nonsense and we can debate those on a case-by-case basis.